We had another murder here last week. Actually, it was three murders and an attempted suicide. According to news reports:
What friends, family and authorities do say is that it appears that as Neal Jacobson sank deeper and deeper into depression, something terrible was building inside him.
The once successful mortgage broker from New Jersey left his company and moved to Florida to care for his ailing father, who died in 2007. Jacobson, 49, lost money in bad investments and hated himself despite his beautiful wife and brilliant twin sons, he confided in his best friend, Richard Norton.
When Norton died of cancer this month, it pushed him farther off his axis, said Norton’s wife, Laurie.
Less than a week after his friend’s funeral, Jacobson took up a gun and shot and killed his wife, Franki, 53, and 7-year-old boys, Eric and Joshua, according to a family member and Palm Beach County Sheriff’s investigators.
After killing his family – just hours before the twin boys’ seventh birthday party – Jacobson took 10 Xanax tablets and a gun and drove away. He go into an accident. Police asked what happened:
“I went off the deep end,” he said, according to the police affidavit.
I have a lot of questions. Most start with “why didn’t he…”
go to a doctor or psychologist?
voluntarily commit himself for observation?
call a suicide hotline?
call a pastor/priest/rabbi?
talk about his feelings?
ask for help?
I understand wanting to kill yourself. I have been at that place and it is a very, very real place – even though today it seems like a dream. But I do not understand the kind of depression and desperation that would drive a person to kill their own child. It must be some kind of excruciating, horrific, mental anguish that is beyond comprehension.
I feel terrible for men with depression and anxiety. It is not just the stigma of mental illness that they face. It is also the ridiculous stereotypes we hold about men – they are strong and do not need help. Men provide and protect. Men pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Men don’t talk about their feelings. Real men don’t get depression. Real men suck it up.
Do we say that about guys with erectile dysfunction? No. So why do we say it about guys with depression? Why aren’t there commercials about men, depression and the medications that can help them without chemically castrating them? Why aren’t men being told that they can take E.D. medications while on antidepressants?
The NIMH has a great program on its web site about men and depression. But let’s admit it. How many guys are going to go to the NIMH web site when they are not feeling right? Jacobson is not an isolated case. Since the economy tanked, these kinds of cases happen so often now that they barely grab headlines. Remember these cases from last year?
Ervin Lupoe, awash in debt, behind on his mortgage and recently fired from his job, killed his wife, five children and himself in Wilmington, Calif. Police said “he was despondent over a job situation and he saw no reasonable way out.”
Karthik Rajaram, a 45-year-old financial manager in Los Angeles, killed his wife, three children and mother-in- law after seeing his finances wiped out by the stock market collapse. “He had some behavioral problems,” a former boss said. “He wasn’t reliable. … He was not an emotionally stable person. It was a real problem and would affect any business he was involved in.”
There must be something we can do.
What is it?
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you are completely right about this
While I completely agree that men with depression do need more attention I really dislike your writing style in these kinds of blog posts. It’s almost like you are excusing the bad behavior. If you want to take your own life because you are depressed that is one thing…but to kill someone else(especially your family members!) because of your state of mind is inexcusable. These crimes committed are atrocious and I don’t care how badly these men are feeling…they are disgusting and less than human for what they did.
I am definitely not excusing this horrendous behavior. I guess I need to work on my tone. I had hoped this post would prompt us to look at our side of the street – what we, as a society, have done that has made it difficult for men with depression to ask for help. Maybe I am wrong and there is nothing we have done or could do.
I would like to see the major networks and pro sport organizations create and televise ads with role models such as Terry Bradshaw explaining how he coped with his depression and where he found help. Maybe if these individuals realize they are not alone and that eventually they will make it out of their black hole they won’t commit such terrible crimes.
I’m a male who has been in and out of depression along with GAD since the late 90s and thanks to my therapist and meds I am doing fine.
I read a great quote by Charlie Chaplin this morning that goes “Nothing is permanent in this wicked world, not even our troubles”
Gerard:
That is a great idea. I interviewed Terry last year. He spoke at an event about his depression. I will never forget him telling me that he felt numb and wanted to cry – not tears of joy – after winning one of the Super Bowl’s (there were so many, I can’t remember which one). Astronaut Buzz Aldrin opened up last year about his alcoholism and depression. I really admire these guys. We need more.
@ Chrissy
You do understand that depression dramatically changes your cognitive function? The men involved were not exactly logical thinkers; your attitude is simply one of the factors that helps to drive the phenomenon Christine is writing about.
Anyone’s death is a tragic outcome, and more so for the murdered. But the way in which you posit “bad behaviour” on the men cited simply compounds the issue. Their thinking is perhaps that they are somehow “saving” the murdered from the consequences of the depressed man’s failures, such as poverty, homelessness and crippling debt. Unfortunately logic and clarity don’t enter into their thinking.
I find your comments about how disgusting and subhuman they are to be appalling.
I am 29. I have been married for five years. I have 2 kids. I have penfriend and I love her. I dont want to chit my wife. But I am depressed. Just I cant understand Why it is happening. I want to meet her and have some lovely days. Please help me and tell what I do.
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